What is Corked Wine?

Video Transcript

"Hi Chuck Byers for Expert Village. With me is Jose Paradella, and today we're discussing challenges of sommeliers. So we're talking about challenges that a sommelier may encounter on the job, in training, on the job, in the dining room. In your opinion, what's one of the most difficult things a sommelier can handle? I think it is to confront the guest with a wine, saying that it's corked, and it isn't. How to deal with that situation is very delicate. You know something; I have trouble, many times when somebody says to me, and somebody who's got knowledge. Not just me, not just somebody who's a neophyte, say to me this wine is corked, and I smell and say I don't think it is. It smells ok, tastes ok. For the benefit of the public, what's a corked wine? Corked wine, it's a wine that smells like cork. It's off? Yes, it's infected. Perhaps it smells like cork. Because these people think that anything, any fault, the wine would be corked. There are many faults. It could just be the character of the wine, or it could be an old wine that has a bit of mushroom smell to it that's normal. A red wine especially. So what happens in a situation like that? You have an expensive wine. 600 dollar bottle of Burgundy or more these days. Double that. Let's say 1200 dollar bottle of Burgundy, and somebody is saying, sorry I don't want this bottle, it's corked. And you've just opened it, and you can't re-cork it. What do you do? In a situation like this, we have a wine on that level, obviously if the person, the guest, is not is suggested by the sommelier, the sommelier will be dealing with the wine himself. The canting, opening and tasting the wine, and he will make the decision if the wine is off or not. If he approves the wine, the wine is ok, because he is being trusted for. In cases of a smaller scale that opening wines on a lower level, the guest will call the sommelier or the waiter over and say the wine is off, or it's corked. In those cases, many, many times it's hard to argue and to prove the contrary. The best thing to do is just replace the bottle or suggest a different wine for the guest. That's what normally is done at that level."